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Written by Enviroadmin
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Monday, 24 May 2010 18:37 |
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912u/tamiflu
Two months ago, we pointed out in our story on flu in The Atlantic that the antiviral drug Tamiflu might not be as effective or safe as many patients, doctors, and governments think. The drug has been widely prescribed since the first cases of H1N1 flu surfaced last spring, and the U.S. government has spent more than $1.5 billion stockpiling it since 2005 as part of the nation’s pandemic preparedness plan.
Now it looks as if our concerns were correct, and the nation may have put more than a billion dollars into the medical equivalent of a mirage. This week, the British medical journal BMJ published a multi-part investigation that confirms that the scientific evidence just isn’t there to show that Tamiflu prevents serious complications, hospitalization, or death in people that have the flu. The BMJ goes further to suggest that Roche, the Swiss company that manufactures and markets Tamiflu, may have misled governments and physicians. In its defense, Roche stated that the company “has never concealed (or had the intention to conceal) any pertinent data.”
The BMJ’s investigation began innocently enough, with an update of a review by the Cochrane Collaboration, a widely-respected international consortium of researchers who periodically examine the medical literature to assess the safety and effectiveness of various treatments. Roche has claimed that its drug reduces hospital admissions by 61% in patients who were otherwise healthy before they got the flu. It has also said that Tamiflu reduces such complications as bronchitis, pneumonia, and sinusitis by 67%, and lower respiratory tract infections requiring antibiotics by 55%. A 2006 Cochrane review of Tamiflu came to similar conclusions—based largely on a paper that looked at ten studies, all of them funded by the company.
The dog ate my homework
But when the Cochrane team, led by Chris Del Mar, from Bond University in Australia, re-examined the studies they had previously used in 2006, they found some discrepancies. It turned out that only two of the ten studies had ever been published in medical journals, and those two showed the drug had very little effect on complications compared to a dummy pill, or placebo. So the Cochrane reviewers decided to look at the data for themselves.
First they went to the lead authors of the published studies—the researchers who were supposed to have access to all of the data. One author said he had lost track of the data when he moved offices and the files appeared to have been discarded. The other said he’d never actually seen the data himself, and directed the Cochrane team to go directly to the company.
Four months and multiple requests later, the Cochrane researchers had a hodgepodge of data from the company, including two studies that showed the drug was ineffective, but which the company had never published. Roche also provided data from a third study, which involved 1,447 adults and adolescents aged 13-80, the largest study of the drug ever conducted. Yet the company never published that one either. (A summary of this and other studies is available at www.roche-trials.com). But with only partial data, the Cochrane team couldn’t even figure out what the study had been intended to measure.
In the meantime, two former employees of Adis International, a large communications company, came forward with documents showing they had ghostwritten some of the published studies of Tamiflu. One of the ghostwriters told the BMJ, “The Tamiflu accounts had a list of key messages that you had to get in. It was run by the [Roche] marketing department and you were answerable to them. In the introduction . . . I had to say what a big problem influenza is. I’d also have to come to the conclusion that Tamiflu was the answer.”
Stockpiling
The Cochrane team eventually concluded that the evidence that Tamiflu reduces complications, hospitalizations, or deaths is weak at best, and if the drug does offer any benefit, it is slight indeed. This is precisely the conclusion of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). As we reported in our story in The Atlantic, the FDA directed Roche to state on the drug’s label the following caveat: “Tamiflu has not been proven to have a positive impact on the potential consequences (such as hospitalizations, mortality, or economic impact) of seasonal, avian, or pandemic influenza.” An FDA spokesperson told the BMJ, "The clinical trials . . . failed to demonstrate any significant difference in rates of hospitalization, complications, or mortality in patients receiving either Tamiflu or placebo.” Yet in the wake of the H1N1 pandemic, the FDA gave temporary approval for the drug to be given to hospitalized flu patients, who are at risk of dying.
Another big unknown is just how safe—or dangerous—Tamiflu may be. According to an FDA spokesperson, side effects may include potentially fatal heart problems. If the drug is going to be used to prevent death, it seems reasonable to ask whether or not its potentially deadly side effects are outweighed by potential benefits. We asked the FDA whether it had required Roche to conduct an additional trial or trials looking at whether or not, on balance, the drug reduces more serious complications than it causes. This week, a spokesperson reported back that there has been no such request made to Roche.
All of which leaves open the question of why governments around the world have invested so much—on the order of $3 billion since the emergence of H1N1 last spring, according to investment bank, JP Morgan—in a drug that appears to do so little.
The answer may lie in the politics of disease. Far from a commercial success when it was initially approved by the FDA in 1999, Tamiflu’s fortunes began to look up in 2003, after the SARS outbreak and the emergence of bird flu. Then Hurricane Katrina hit. In the wake of criticism over its handling of the disaster in New Orleans, the Bush Administration announced a multi-billion-dollar pandemic and bioterrorism preparedness strategy, which included stockpiling millions of doses of Tamiflu.
As the nation’s lead public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appears to be operating in some alternative universe, where valid science no longer matters to public policy. The agency’s flu recommendations are in lockstep with Roche’s claims that the drug can be life-saving—despite the FDA’s findings and despite the lack of studies to prove such a claim. What’s more, neither the CDC nor the FDA has demanded the types of scientific studies that could definitively determine whether or not the company’s claims are true: that Tamiflu reduces the risk of serious complications and saves lives. Nancy Cox, who heads the CDC’s flu program, told us earlier this year she opposes a placebo-controlled study (in which one half of patients would be given Tamiflu and the other half would be given placebo), because the drug’s benefits are already proven.
There are a couple of take-home messages here. One is pretty obvious: Tamiflu may not be doing much good for patients with the flu who take it, and it might be causing harm. The more important issue, however, involves the need for trust in science and medicine. Governments, public health agencies, and international bodies such as the World Health Organization, have all based their decisions to recommend and stockpile Tamiflu on studies that had seemed independent, but had in fact been funded by the company and were authored almost entirely by Roche employees or paid academic consultants. So did the Cochrane Collaboration, at least in its earlier assessments of Tamiflu. Millions of flu patients have taken the drug as a result.
That trust appears to have been misplaced, and a drug touted as beneficial on the basis of flimsy evidence has by now become so entrenched that no one appears willing to conduct the sort of study needed to prove whether or not it can, in fact, save lives.
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Monday, 24 May 2010 18:36 |
GENEVA, Switzerland, June 9, 2009 (ENS) - The World Health Organization is "getting close" to declaring a worldwide pandemic of the novel H1N1 influenza virus, a senior official said today.
The virus, also called human swine flu, has spread to 73 countries that have reported 26,563 laboratory confirmed cases of the illness, with 140 deaths, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general for health, security and environment, told reporters on a teleconference today.
"We are getting close to declaring a pandemic. But we are trying to get as much information out to countries as we can that would relieve anxiety," Dr. Fukuda said. "Right now we consider the situation to be relatively moderate."
Since April 25, when WHO declared the H1N1 flu virus to be a public health emergency of international concern, the world health body has raised the threat level from Phase 4, characterized by human-to-human transmission, to Phase 5, characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region.
The current WHO phase of pandemic alert is Phase 5, based on the viral outbreak in one WHO region, North America, where the virus was first detected in Mexico and quickly spread to the United States and Canada.
Phase 6, the pandemic phase, is characterized by community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region in addition to the criteria defined in Phase 5. Designation of this phase will indicate that a global pandemic is under way.
Over the past few weeks the virus has spread across the Southern Hemisphere, which is going into its wintertime period when even seasonal influenza normally spreads.
Current outbreaks and spread of the virus in South America, and particularly in Australia, make it more likely that WHO will declare a Phase 6 pandemic, the highest category of threat, Dr. Fukuda said.
"We are mindful of what is going on in Australia and we are getting closer," he said.
In the Australian state of Victoria, at least 1,011 people have been diagnosed with the disease, out of the 1,211 Australians who have tested positive for the H1N1 virus since late May. No deaths have been reported.
Victorian health officials report they are focusing treatment on members of the community most vulnerable to viral infections, such as the elderly, students at special development schools, hospital patients and people with a chronic illness.
The spread of this virus in Australia appears to meet the WHO criteria for community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region from the original outbreak in North America.
Dr. Fukuda said today that if WHO moves to declare a Phase 6 pandemic alert "it is not just a matter of getting up in front of cameras and making a declaration, it's to prepare countries for this situation so that they have the information, the knowledge, and the tools to handle the increased numbers of people who may be sick - to make sure all the steps that can be taken are being taken."
He said WHO is doing a lot of work on communications, on vaccine development, on improving the anti-viral supply, and on developing clinical guidelines.
"For WHO the most important principle of all this is that the actions we take, the announcements we make they are to help people, to help countries to have the most positive effect possible, make countries as resilient as possible.This requires a lot of effort and a lot of time, that's what we're doing right now."
But today, Australian health officials were thrown a curve ball by the announcement that the most modern test for the H1N1 virus may be only 90 percent accurate.
The most recent information from the World Health Organization and from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates the newly developed rRT-PCR real-time testing method gives only a "presumptive positive" rather than a "definitive positive" result for H1N1 influenza.
Some healthy Australians may have been falsely diagnosed with the virus while others with the illness may have been told their symptoms were caused by something else.
A fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control states that the test has been designed "to minimize the likelihood of false positive test results." If false positive results occur, the CDC acknowledges that risks to patients could include a recommendation for quarantine of household or other close contacts, a recommendation for patient isolation that might limit contact with family or friends and the ability to work.
"A negative rRT-PCR test should not be interpreted as demonstrating that the patient does not have novel influenza A (H1N1) infection, if other aspects of the patient's clinical presentation or recent epidemiologic exposures indicate novel influenza A (H1N1) infection is likely, and diagnostic tests for other causes of acute respiratory illness are negative," the CDC states.
Confusion and unnecessary anxiety is exactly what the World Health Organization is trying to prevent by communicating all facts to member countries, Dr. Fukuda said.
He expressed concern about possible eroneous adverse reactions such as, "questioning the safety of pork, trade embargoes issued, concerns about travellers coming from certain areas, border closures, travel restrictions, these are the potential kinds of adverse reactions you can have," he said.
"In earlier outbreaks we've seen worried people who are not sick overrun hospitals. So many going to emergency rooms can adversely affect people who really require those facilities. We want to minimize these consequences," Dr. Fukuda said.
While WHO considered changing the definition of a Phase 6 pandemic in response to the concerns of member countries that it should reflect severity of illness as well as geographic spread, Dr. Fukuda said WHO officials have decided to stay with current criteria but augment the information provided "when we go to Phase 6" by "explaining what we understand about the severity of the pandemic."
Many of the member countries have existing national pandemic plans based on what Dr. Fukuda called "a more severe scenario," the avian influenza H5N1 virus that was spreading several years ago.
These plans may be inappropriate for the H1N1 virus, said Dr. Fukuda. He said WHO wants to discuss the severity of the situation and provide guidance to countries to help tailor their plans to meet the current situation.
"Our biggest concern is whether actions taken by countries are what is needed right now in terms of information and vaccines," he said. "We are focusing on the critical public health actions. We feel pretty comfortable that these critical actions are being taken."
Source and Copyright: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2009/2009-06-09-01.asp
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Monday, 24 May 2010 18:35 |
Source: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2238601,00.html
Gordon Brown today said the government was doing everything it could to prevent the spread of the latest outbreak of bird flu after three dead swans were found on a nature reserve in Dorset.
The swans carried the lethal strain of bird flu, sparking fears that the virus had again landed on Britain's shores.
Urgent tests were under way to check other birds and ducks at the swannery, in Abbotsbury, where the dead mute swans were found in the past 48 hours.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed that the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain had been found in the three swans.
The EU Commission has been informed. Wild bird control and monitoring areas are being put around the reserve, based on ornithological advice. They include the Chesil Beach and Portland Bill areas.
Bird keepers inside the areas will be required to house their birds to prevent them having contact with wild birds. Bird movements will also be restricted, and bird gatherings are banned.
Defra is also consulting on what wider restrictions may be needed, but there will be no culling of wild birds because such a move could disperse birds and spread the disease.
"Our message to all bird keepers, particularly those in the area, is that they must be vigilant, report any signs of disease immediately and practice the highest levels of biosecurity," Fred Landeg, the acting chief veterinary officer, said.
Brown said: "We have had to deal with this issue before and the important thing is that people know we have placed protection zones around the affected area."
Ian Johnson, spokesman for the National Farmers' Union in the South West, said: "After the last 12 months of plague and pestilence, this is the last thing on God's green earth we would have wished for."
He added: "We have got to deal with it expediently but there is no need to panic as it appears to have been contained."
The latest cases, coming after an outbreak at the Bernard Matthews factory in Suffolk last year, will particularly worry experts because the pattern suggests the infection may have come from wild birds.
In recent previous cases, human errors such as contaminated transport or feed were found to have caused outbreaks of the disease in birds.
The diseased mute swans had not migrated into Britain - when they do fly, they normally travel very short distances. It appears likely they caught the virus from other wild birds or ducks that came into the swannery for the winter months.
In April 2006 a dead swan infected with H5N1 was washed up harbour in Cellardyke, Scotland. It was initially thought to be a native mute swan, but later identified as a migratory whooper swan.
Today's discovery comes less than a month after restrictions on poultry movement were lifted in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Thousands of birds on six premises were culled in the wake of the outbreak, which Defra said had been contained to two farms in Suffolk.
Bird flu currently remains a disease that affects poultry, but there are fears that, if it mutates, it could turn into a form that is highly contagious to human beings, and form a flu pandemic.
The Abbotsbury swannery is a popular visitor attraction in the summer, and was originally set up during the 1040s by monks in Dorset who regarded swan meat as a great delicacy.
Close to the south Dorset shore, it consists of different pools in which swans can feed and breed. From mid-May to late June, hundreds of cygnets hatch from eggs in nests on or near the pathways.
Conservative MP Oliver Letwin, whose West Dorset constituency includes the Swannery, said: "I very much hope that we will get through this with the Swannery intact because it is a remarkable national institution of real beauty and real ecological significance."
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which has two wetland nature reserves near Abbotsbury, said it would increase the surveillance of wild birds on its sites in Dorset, Devon and Somerset in response to today's outbreak.
Dr Mark Avery, the society's director of conservation, said: "The circumstances are consistent with the disease arriving in wild birds."
He added: "It is unlikely to have involved the swans directly as this population is highly sedentary."
Source: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2238601,00.html
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Monday, 24 May 2010 18:35 |
ATLANTA, Georgia, October 19, 2007 (ENS) - Officials closed all 21 schools in Bedford County, Virginia for disinfection Wednesday after a high school student died of a staph infection. Ashton Bonds, 17, Staunton River High School senior, died Monday after being hospitalized for over a week.
Bonds was diagnosed with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, a bacterial strain that does not respond to antibiotics, and poses a special risk to young children, the elderly and people with depressed immune systems.
Drug-resistant staph infections appear more widespread than previously thought. A study by federal government researchers published in Wednesday's edition of the "Journal of the American Medical Association shows that infections caused by MRSA are no longer confined to hospitals and are increasingly found in community settings such as schools.
The study reports that an estimated 18,650 people died from MRSA in the United States in 2005 - a larger number than the 17,011 deaths attributable to HIV/AIDS across the nation in that year.
R. Monina Klevens, DDS, MPH, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and colleagues conducted the study to determine the incidence of invasive MRSA in nine U.S. communities in 2005. The team then used these results to estimate the prevalence of invasive MRSA infections across the United States.
This study establishes the first national baseline by which future trends in invasive MRSA infections can be assessed.
"Based on 8,987 observed cases of MRSA and 1,598 in-hospital deaths among patients with MRSA, we estimate that 94,360 invasive MRSA infections occurred in the United States in 2005," the authors write.
"These infections were associated with death in 18,650 cases," according to the study by Klevens' team.
After adjusting for age, race and sex, they arrived at an incidence rate of invasive MRSA in 2005 of 31.8 per 100,000 persons.
"In conclusion, invasive MRSA disease is a major public health problem and is primarily related to health care but no longer confined to acute care. Although in 2005 the majority of invasive disease was related to health care, this may change," the researchers write.
Elizabeth Bancroft, MD, of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health calls the 31.8 per 100,000 rate of invasive MRSA "astounding."
In an editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association to accompany the Klevens study, she estimates that this rate is higher than the combined rate for pneumococcal disease, invasive group A streptococcus, invasive meningococcal disease, and invasive H influenzas in 2005.
"Old diseases have learned new tricks," Bancroft writes. "Consequently, new collaborations between the public health and medical communities are needed to identify and control antimicrobial resistance."
MRSA has become the most frequent cause of skin and soft tissue infections among patients presenting to emergency departments in the United States, and can also cause severe, sometimes fatal invasive disease.
The study found about 85 percent of all invasive MRSA infections were associated with health care settings. Two-thirds of these infections surfaced in the community among people who were hospitalized, underwent a medical procedure or resided in a long-term care facility within the previous year.
By contrast, about 15 percent of reported infections were considered to be community-associated, which means that the infection occurred in people without documented health care risk factors.
The 2005 rates of invasive infection were highest among people 65 years of age or older. Black people were affected at twice the rate of whites, which could be due to higher rates of chronic illness among blacks.
"These numbers show that many families are being affected by these drug-resistant infections," said Denise Cardo, MD, director of CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. "Healthcare facilities need to make MRSA prevention a greater priority. The closer we get to 100 percent compliance with CDC recommendations, the greater the impact on patient health and safety."
The Klevens team arrived at the new national estimate by projecting from the number of invasive MRSA cases from nine U.S. sites.
The sites included the state of Connecticut; the Atlanta metropolitan area; the San Francisco Bay area; the Denver metropolitan area; the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area; Monroe County, New York; Baltimore City, Maryland; Davidson County, Tennessee; and Ramsey County, Minnesota.
All the sites were part of CDC's Active Bacterial Core surveillance program, which actively tracks a number of pathogens in the United States representing a population of 38 million Americans.
Since 2002, school athletic teams in several states, including Massachusetts, have reported MRSA infections among wrestling, volleyball, and most frequently, football teams. Some colleges have reported MRSA infection cases in residential dormitories.
This staph infection first appears on the skin as a red, swollen pimple or boil that may be painful or have pus. It can be spread by skin-to skin contact or by touching contaminated surfaces.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that people keep their hands free of staph bacteria by washing thoroughly with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand cleaner.
Keep cuts and scrapes clean and covered with a bandage until healed, and avoid contact with other people's wounds or bandages.
And avoid sharing personal items such as towels or razors.
Doctors say staph infections can usually be treated with antibiotics. But over the decades, some strains of staph - such as MRSA - have become resistant to antibiotics that once destroyed it. MRSA was first discovered in 1961. It is now immune to methicillin, amoxicillin, penicillin, oxacillin, and many other antibiotics.
While some antibiotics still work, MRSA is constantly adapting. Researchers developing new antibiotics are having a difficult time keeping up.
Most MRSA infections are treated by good wound and skin care - keeping the area clean and dry, washing hands after caring for the area, carefully disposing of any bandages, and allowing the body to heal.
Source: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2007/2007-10-19-01.asp
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Monday, 24 May 2010 18:34 |
June 16, 2006 — By Associated Press
GENEVA — Filthy drinking water, mosquitoes and other avoidable menaces kill 13 million people a year, the World Health Organization said Friday.
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10683
The threat from poorly controlled contact with surroundings is especially lethal to children, Geneva-based WHO said in a 104-page report called "Preventing Disease through Healthy Environments."
While 24 percent of the diseases affecting the general population result from exposure to threats in the environment, the figure rises to more than 33 percent for children, it said.
Children account for 94 percent of deaths from diarrhea, one of the biggest childhood killers, resulting largely from unsafe water, it said.
Forty percent of the people who die annually from malaria are children, the report said. It said the disease could be curbed by keeping housing away from mosquito breeding areas.
The U.N. agency said the study broke new ground because it developed a "hit list" of environmental causes of disease that could best be tackled by a coordinated approach to reduce threats.
"The four main diseases influenced by poor environments are diarrhea, lower respiratory infections, various forms of unintentional injuries and malaria," the report said.
It recommended promoting better management of water resources including safer household storage, the use of cleaner fuels, better built housing and more careful use of poisons in the home and workplace.
Many road traffic injuries resulted largely from poor design of urban areas and transport systems, it said.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which leads to a gradual loss of lung function, often results from exposure to workplace dusts and fumes and other forms of indoor and outdoor air pollution, the report said.
"Preventing environmental risk could save as many as 4 million lives a year, mostly in developing countries," the report said.
"We call on ministries of health, environment and other partners to work together to ensure that these environmental and public health gains become a reality," said Dr. Maria Neira, director of WHO's Department for Public Health and Environment.
WHO said the report was based on systematic review of scientific literature as well as surveys of more than 100 experts worldwide.
Source: Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10683
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Monday, 24 May 2010 18:34 |
Killer bird flu marches across Asia, Europe
February 21, 2006
Cape Argus - http://capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=55&fArticleId=3123619
ndia quarantined six people in hospital yesterday and began a door-to-door search for anyone with fever as authorities scrambled to contain the country's first outbreak of bird flu.
In Europe, officials urged people to carry on eating poultry meat despite outbreaks of the lethal H5N1 bird flu strain, saying European Union (EU) authorities had the means to wipe out the disease.
A string of EU countries have now confirmed H5N1 in wild birds, knocking consumer confidence in poultry meat - especially chicken. But the EU farm chief rejected requests from member states to support poultry prices, saying the situation had not yet become sufficiently severe.
"We have the measures and legislation for containment and eradication of such diseases," EU Health and Consumer Protection commissioner Markos Kyprianou told journalists in Brussels.
As bird flu continued its relentless march into the heart of Europe from Asia, at least 11 nations worldwide reported outbreaks over the past three weeks, an indication that the virus, which has killed at least 92 people, is spreading faster.
Yesterday the World Health Organisation (WHO) said mutations in the H5N1 virus were seemingly making it more deadly in chickens and more resistant in the environment but without yet increasing the threat to humans.
The changes, which all viruses undergo, have affected patterns of transmission among domestic poultry and wild birds, with ducks, for example, developing the ability to pass the virus on without getting ill, the WHO says on its website.
India's Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said the situation was under control and there were no human cases of avian flu in the country despite fears at the weekend that a farmer had succumbed to the disease.
Officials in the remote district of Nandurbar launched door-to-door checks for people with fever, and continued a mass cull of up to half a million birds.
In Germany, soldiers in biohazard suits were deployed to prevent the spread of bird flu after H5N1 reached the mainland, while Tornado air force jets searched the coast for dead birds.
Egyptian officials said bird flu had spread to new parts of the country, adding to the devastation in a poultry industry which provided a vital part of Egyptians' diet.
Malaysia reported its first case of H5N1 bird flu since November 2004, with the death of 40 chickens in central Selangor state last week.
Bosnia confirmed its first cases of bird flu yesterday and neighbouring Croatia reported it second outbreak.
France gave the West African nation of Niger equipment to improve bird flu testing after H5N1 was confirmed in three more states in neighbouring Nigeria.
Yesterday, Pakistan banned poultry from neighbours India and Iran, which found the disease in wild swans last week.
Nepal also banned Indian poultry and Bangladesh said it had ordered a high alert along its porous border with India to prevent any poultry smuggling. - Reuters
Cape Argus - http://capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=55&fArticleId=3123619
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Written by Enviroadmin
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Monday, 24 May 2010 18:33 |
March 20, 2006
Cape Argus - http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=55&fArticleId=3166941
Farming and health experts from dozens of African countries as well as donor organisations and top UN officials are set to meet in Gabon today for three days of talks aimed at clinching a continental response to bird flu.
The gathering comes in the wake of reports that the H5N1 strain of avian flu caused the death of a 30-year-old woman in Egypt and that another Egyptian person was suffering symptoms consistent with bird flu.
If the cause of the woman's death is confirmed, she will be the first human H5N1 fatality in Africa.
The meeting in Libreville is being organised by six UN organisations and the government of Gabon.
Food and Agriculture Organisation director general Jacques Diouf, World Health Organisation (WHO) regional director for Africa Luis Gomes Sambo, his UN Development Programme (UNDP) counterpart Gilbert Houngbo and UN bird flu envoy David Nabarro are among the officials expected to take part.
"The situation on the continent is pretty alarming because this animal epidemic has a direct impact on human health," said the UNDP's representative in Gabon, Bintou Djibou.
Officially, H5N1 has hit only four African countries: Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Egypt, but few experts believe that's the whole story.
"As an epidemiologist, I can assure you that many more than four countries are affected," said WHO representative Andre Ndikuyeze.
As widely pointed out by experts, bird flu poses a worrying threat for Africa, which lacks the infrastructure of the developed world, and where poultry and humans live in close proximity.
Also, any large-scale slaughtering of poultry would have consequences in an impoverished continent where chicken plays a central role in diet.
"We must plan the response urgently," said Ndikuyeze.
She said African delegates would also appeal for resources.
Cape Argus - http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=55&fArticleId=3166941
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